Wine And War: The French, The Nazis And The Battle For France's Greatest Treasure Part 4

Consequently, what little wine Segnitz did manage to buy was mediocre at best. Some of the best, however, came from Maurice Drouhin. He and Segnitz had done business before the war and were good friends. In Drouhin's opinion, Segnitz not only understood wine but also was sensitive to people's feelings. He sympathized with their despair at being an occupied country and understood how they chafed under the shortages, curfews and other restrictions.

Yet the occupation of Beaune, initially at least, was "not terrible," according to Mademoiselle Tridon. "Unpleasant yes, but we did what was necessary to survive." Because mail was censored, Tridon, as secretary for the wine producers' syndicate, resorted to another delivery system: she stuck letters that she did not want the Germans to see behind the door of the women's toilet. "The Germans were too dainty to go snooping there," she said.

Because of the curfew, usually at 8 P.M., although the Germans could change the time on a whim, business and most other activity ended early. Bicycle lights were painted blue and residents were required to hang blackout curtains over their windows. "It was so dark that even I, who have been here all my life, could get lost," Tridon said.

More upsetting were the military patrols which moved constantly through the cobblestoned streets, checking people's ident.i.ty papers and sometimes frisking them for hidden weapons. "They would ask us questions but it was so ridiculous because none of them could speak much French," Tridon said. "Everyone laughed because whenever the Germans asked a question, we would reply with something entirely vulgar."

Segnitz, who did speak French, was acutely aware of how despised the Germans were and did his best to fit in. Before World War I, his family owned two wine properties in Bordeaux, Chteau Cha.s.se-Spleen and Chteau Malescot-Saint-Exupery. When World War I broke out, the cellars of Cha.s.se-Spleen were pillaged by local residents, who turned on the grape pickers, accusing them of working for the enemy. Both chteaux were then confiscated as enemy property by the French government.

Given that background, Segnitz was unfailingly polite and never wore his military uniform in public. Unfortunately, he still stuck out like a sore thumb. "Segnitz would walk around town in a green loden coat, and he looked just like the German actor Erich von Stroheim," said Louis Latour. "He must have been a little bit frustrated, because he would always say, 'How do people know I am German? I speak perfect French but everybody always says, "Oh you must be that German." ' "

Although public opinion was intensely anti-German, most in Burgundy, as in other parts of France, were still pro-Petain and supported the Marshal's program of close collaboration with Germany. Such was the reverence for him that the Burgundy wine merchants' syndicate decided to send the Marshal sixty-six cases of wine, some of which were bottled in 1856, the year he was born. Mademoiselle Tridon was dispatched to Vichy to make the formal presentation. Reading a letter from the syndicate, she said, "We present this gift as a sign of our respect and as proof of our fidelity to your commands and to national unity." Tridon later recalled that Petain "was very nice, but what I remember most about that day was how incredibly old he looked and how a doctor stood constantly by his shoulder."

Shortly after their tribute to Petain, wine merchants and producers were shocked to learn that Maurice Drouhin had been arrested. He was walking to a meeting in August 1941 at the Hospices de Beaune, the city's charity hospital, when a German patrol picked him up.

"The news came like a thunderbolt," Louis Latour said. "Everyone knew that Maurice and Segnitz worked closely together, so everyone here was very surprised when the Germans arrested him."

About the only one who was not surprised was Drouhin himself. As part of the French army reserves, he had accompanied generals to Was.h.i.+ngton during the interwar years and had taken on periodic special a.s.signments. "My father never said what those a.s.signments were but he often met with General Douglas MacArthur," his son Robert said.

German intelligence closely monitored those trips and was convinced Drouhin was engaged in anti-German activity. When they arrested him, they said they had found a gun hidden in his house. It was a rusty old service revolver from World War I, which Maurice had left in a drawer and forgotten about. But it was all the excuse the Germans needed.

Maurice was imprisoned at Fresnes, outside Paris. Because he spoke German, he got along reasonably well with his guards. During one conversation, Maurice recounted some of his war experiences, including the incident in which he helped save a German soldier's life.

"Oh, so you don't hate Germany or Germans?" one of the guards asked in surprise.

"No, just your politics and government," Drouhin replied.

Soon after his imprisonment, Drouhin's guard gave him a pencil so he could write to his wife, Pauline.

Aug. 14, 1941: My dear little wife, first of all I want to a.s.sure you that my health is fine. I suffer from only one thing, and that is being far from you and far from our dear children. No one as yet has interrogated me but I wait with impatience because I am sure I am here as a result of a simple error. Courage, my darling, the beautiful days will come again.

But as days pa.s.sed, Maurice grew increasingly concerned, not only about his own fate but about his wine business and how Pauline would fare in his absence.

Sept. 7, 1941: If I am not back for the harvest, rely on the advice of others. Be very careful around the barrels when the must begins fermenting; the fumes can be dangerous. Do not worry if we lose money while I am gone. It is best to put a brake on new business and just continue with our regular orders, especially with those customers who will help you get empty bottles we can use. Then start bottling little by little the 1938 Romanee-Conti. Begin with the best wines, and do everything you can to keep the staff.

In a letter about a week later, Maurice told Pauline that he had just appeared before a military tribunal.

I was interrogated yesterday and I must pay tribute to the perfect loyalty of he who presided over my interrogation. I constantly felt I was in front of judges who were seeking nothing but the truth. I remain firm in the hope that my innocence will be recognized so that our separation will be of a very short duration.

Well aware that the Germans were carefully reading everything he was writing, Maurice repeated those sentiments in several other letters to his wife.

Oct. 1, 1941: I was part of the War Council of my division in 1939, so I know it is loyalty that motivates the military judges. I cannot believe they would consider that unusable old revolver that I forgot in my drawer to be a weapon and that they would punish me for a simple act of forgetfulness. In any case, I am totally innocent and have nothing to hide. At the end of each day, I say to myself that it is one day less of this ordeal to live through.

But Maurice was frightened. That was something he could not conceal from his wife, no matter how hard he tried to comfort her.

Whatever you do, do not let yourself fall into melancholy or sadness for me. You must make sure that nothing changes in the life of our children, in their games, in their gaiety. You must do this for me, for this will give me the courage to go on.

His moments of greatest comfort were when Pauline was allowed to visit. On one of those visits, she told him that half of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti had been put up for sale, and that because Maison Joseph Drouhin was the largest distributor of wines from that famed estate, Maurice had an opportunity to buy it. As much as he was tempted, Maurice shook his head. "It would mean borrowing money," he said. "I don't want to do that." Borrowing money was something winemakers rarely did in those days, and with his own fate uncertain, Maurice was even more reluctant.

Sensing how worried her husband was and realizing full well the danger he was in, Pauline contacted the head of the prison and asked for an appointment.

"My husband is innocent," she told him. "Surely that old pistol your soldiers found when they searched our house doesn't make him a criminal. It doesn't even work."

The German officer listened politely. He praised her devotion to her husband and then apologized. "I'm sorry but there is nothing I can do," he said. Pauline was distraught.

She was, therefore, surprised when not long afterward, she received a letter from him. "As I told you, there is very little I can do," he said. "Even your n.o.ble spirit which I witnessed cannot be taken into consideration, as that would be against all the regulations. But I can tell you that this nightmare Monsieur Drouhin is living through will not last much longer. Please be patient. I will do everything in my power to make the course of these formalities as short as possible."

Patience, however, was running out. At the Hospices de Beaune, which Drouhin headed as vice president, colleagues complained it was difficult to go on without their leader.

The Hospices was the cornerstone of life in Beaune and had been so since 1443 when Nicolas Rolin, chancellor to the Duke of Burgundy, founded a charity hospital of that name, ceding all his worldly possessions to the Hospices and endowing it with some of the region's choicest vineyards. Over the centuries, other pious Burgundians bequeathed their vineyards to the Hospices to support its work.

Now, officials warned, all that work was being jeopardized. Vineyards needed attention and so did the charitable inst.i.tutions the Hospices ran, such as the hospital, an orphanage and a home for elderly men. In a letter to the head of the military tribunal, the board of directors said that Maurice's incarceration was crippling the entire organization. "His absence is putting all the services we render into greatest difficulty. We beg that you do all that is possible to accelerate the solution of this affair."

What few realized was that Drouhin's activities went far beyond the Hospices and his wine business. He was, in fact, deeply involved with the Resistance, something the Germans had long suspected but never had been able to prove. Even from prison, Maurice was continuing to direct its activities. With books such as The Count of Monte Cristo and others by Alexandre Dumas which Pauline sent to the prison, the two carried on a secret correspondence using the code Maurice had taught her. The correspondence contained messages for the Resistance about German troop emplacements and advice on how to sneak people across the Demarcation Line.

Just before Christmas, the Germans announced they were putting Maurice on trial. His friend and fellow negociant Louis Latour rushed to the prison to see if there was anything he could do. Their meeting was short, but it was long enough to convince Latour that Maurice was in serious trouble. "He was terrified," Latour said. "He was afraid he was going to be executed."

Pauline, desperate to save her husband, remembered the letter he had written to her during World War I in which he described how he helped save the life of a German soldier. She knew she had kept it, but where? Finally, she located it buried in a drawer containing other personal effects. Folding the letter into an envelope, she tucked it into a bag along with a copy of the newspaper in which the letter had been reprinted and headed to the prison.

There, she handed the envelope to the German commandant. He promised to read the letter and article and take them into consideration.

On February 13, 1942, the unexpected happened: the Germans freed Maurice. They gave no explanation. Undoubtedly, the letter and newspaper article helped, but many in Beaune were convinced that Maurice's friends.h.i.+p with weinfhrer Adolph Segnitz was also an important factor.

Although Maurice was relieved, he also realized the Germans were still suspicious and that it was probably just a matter of time before they would try to arrest him again. Upon returning home, the first thing he did was pack a small bag of clothes and other personal necessities and hide it under his bed. Then he turned his attention to restarting operations at Maison Joseph Drouhin, business he had told Pauline to "put a brake on" during his months in prison. He also resumed his work at the Hospices de Beaune.

Maurice had been home for three months when the Hospices received a letter from the regional prefet, or administrator, in Dijon. The official wanted to know if the Hospices would be willing to donate a portion of one of its vineyards to Marshal Philippe Petain.

Maurice summoned members of the Hospices board of directors to ask their opinion. Heads nodded and there were murmurs of approval. Everyone agreed that were it not for Petain, France would have suffered a far worse fate at the hands of Germany than it currently faced. When the vote was taken, it was unanimous. They chose a prime section of vineyard on a slope overlooking Beaune, land that had been part of the Hospices vineyards since 1508. In honor of the Marshal, they decided to rename it Clos du Marechal.

A few days later, vineyard workers, stonemasons and others converged on the site to build a stone wall around it. They also constructed an ornate stone archway carved with Petain's symbol, a Frankish ax combined with a marshal's baton. As the arch neared completion, workers removed one of the stones near the base and hollowed it out. Inside, they placed a copy of the paper deeding the property to Petain.

A week later, on May 29, 1942, a delegation headed by Maurice Drouhin arrived in Vichy to present the original deed to the Marshal in person. Petain greeted them warmly and ushered them into his office. The old man, who was eighty-six, was beaming. Their gesture, he said, had touched him deeply. "You have flattered a personal pa.s.sion of mine, my love for the soil and my instinct as a winegrower," he said. "Thanks to you, I am now the owner of one of the best vineyards in Burgundy. If I don't give this gift more publicity, it is because I want to preserve the intimate character with which you have given it to me. I am especially grateful that you will be managing the vines for me. I think with pleasure of the first harvest to come."

That was not all that was ahead. Each November following the harvest, the Hospices de Beaune staged a spectacular auction of its wines. Over the years, it had become one of the biggest celebrations of the Burgundian year with foreign dignitaries, wine buyers from dozens of countries and thousands of other wine lovers flocking to Beaune to take part in the festivities. There were wine tastings, lavish banquets and the auction itself.

In 1943, it was even more important. It was the 500th anniversary of the Hospices de Beaune. Unfortunately, there was a problem: no one wanted the Germans around. Because Maurice Drouhin was in charge of the program, it fell to him to tell the Germans they were not welcome. He was not looking forward to it.

In recent months, German soldiers in the area had become nervous and more aggressive. With losses on the snow-swept Russian front mounting, thousands of troops throughout Burgundy were being rea.s.signed for duty there. Grim-faced soldiers, already dressed in white winter hats, moved sullenly through towns and villages as they prepared to leave. Those remaining in Burgundy were consolidated in more urbanized areas where German officers believed they would be less vulnerable to attacks by the Resistance.

With understandable trepidation, Drouhin called Adolph Segnitz to say he had a matter of great urgency to discuss. The weinfhrer agreed to see him immediately. Maurice tried to explain, using words he hoped would not hurt his friend's feelings. "It's not against you personally," he said. "The celebration, however, is a local tradition that does not involve politics; it is a kind of country fair that is primarily for French people."

Segnitz took the news calmly. "I understand what you are trying to say," he said. Clearly, the weinfhrer was deeply disappointed. He as much as anyone had been looking forward to the affair. Then he said, "I must warn you that this may put me in an uncomfortable position with my superiors." Segnitz could easily have turned down the request and Maurice would have had no choice but to accept it. Instead, Segnitz rose from his seat, extended his hand and said simply, "I'll see what I can do."

A few days later, Segnitz called on Maurice. "I have some good news for you," he said. "You can have your celebration and no Germans will attend. You have my word."

To the weinfhrer's surprise, Drouhin replied, "You are wrong, one German will be present." Then Maurice handed him a ticket. "That's for you. You will be the only German there, but may I ask one more favor? Please make sure to come in civilian clothes and not military uniform."

The 500th anniversary of the Hospices de Beaune was a success. Despite the occupation and the uncertainty of those days, writers, actors, religious figures as well as officials from Vichy showed up for the celebration. No one enjoyed it more than Adolph Segnitz.

Not long afterward, Maurice Drouhin received a thank-you letter from him. "As you know," he said, "I am a great admirer of your culture and traditions, and each time I have entered the Hospices, I have been touched by the restfulness of spirit which we all need in this awful time of war. On this 500th anniversary, it is my wish to give the Hospices de Beaune a gift; perhaps you have a special need or there is something you have not been able to do for one reason or another."

Attached to the letter was a check for 100,000 francs.

No region suffered more pillaging of its wine than Champagne. Nearly two million bottles were grabbed by German soldiers during the first weeks of the occupation alone.

It was, therefore, with immense relief that the Champenois learned that German authorities were sending in someone to oversee champagne purchases and, hopefully, end the looting and restore order. They were even more relieved when they found out who it would be: Otto Klaebisch of Mattes-Mller, a winemaking and importing firm from Germany's Rhineland. "We were so happy we got someone from the wine trade, and not a beer man," Bernard de Nonancourt said. The Nonancourts knew Klaebisch well because he had been the prewar agent in Germany for a number of champagne houses, including Lanson, which the family of Bernard's mother owned.

Brandy, however, was Klaebisch's original background. He was born in Cognac, where his parents had been brandy merchants before World War I. When France confiscated all enemy-owned property during the war, the Klaebisch family lost its business there and returned to Germany.

Otto, however, retained his taste for the finer things in life, especially great champagne. He pursued a career in the wine and spirits industry, putting his French background to good use.

That background made Klaebisch's appointment as weinfhrer of Champagne easier to take. "If you were going to be shoved around, it was better to be shoved around by a winemaker than by some beer-drinking n.a.z.i lout," said one producer.

Klaebisch began his "shoving" almost immediately. Unlike Heinz Bmers in Bordeaux, who had rented a small apartment, Klaebisch wanted something more impressive. A chteau, for instance. He found what he wanted when he saw where Bertrand de Voge, head of Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin, lived. After one look, Klaebisch issued orders for the chteau to be requisitioned. An angry de Voge and family were sent packing.

"Klaebisch was very happy to be here," de Nonancourt remembered. "He did not like combat and the last thing he wanted was to be sent to the Russian front."

Given his family connections and professional contacts, Klaebisch landed the soft a.s.signment without difficulty. His brother-in-law was none other than Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, whose father-in-law, Otto Henkel, was a good friend of Bordeaux's Louis Eschenauer. Eschenauer, in turn, was a cousin of German port commander Ernst Khnemann. Eschenauer was also part owner of Mumm champagne, another property that had been confiscated from German owners in World War I. He had hired Ribbentrop to represent that marque in Germany.

Only a wine genealogist could unravel the complicated family and professional tree that entangled winemakers and merchants throughout France and Germany. It went a long way to explain how Klaebisch became weinfhrer of Champagne.

Klaebisch, however, was different from the other weinfhrers. He enjoyed the trappings of military life and almost always wore his uniform. He was also impressed with t.i.tles. When he first met Count Robert-Jean de Voge, the man whom he would be negotiating champagne purchases, he was deferential to the point of being obsequious, or, as one producer put it, "too anxious to please."

De Voge, head of Mot & Chandon, had a complicated family tree of his own. He was related to many of Europe's royal families as well as to many of France's leading wine producers. He even had connections with the Vatican. He also happened to be the brother of Veuve Clicquot's Bertrand de Voge, whom Klaebisch had just kicked out of his house.

Klaebisch ran into problems almost from the moment he moved in. The 1940 harvest was disastrous. The yield was 80 percent below average. Aware that Berlin expected him to supply a certain amount of champagne every month, Klaebisch visited the houses he had done business with before the war and asked them to make up the difference from their reserves.

De Voge thought that was a bad idea. He feared that other houses would be angry and jealous. With international markets cut off and sales to French civilians prohibited, those firms might easily go out of business.

Even the houses Klaebisch wanted to do business with were unhappy. Yes, their market was "guaranteed" but they also had to accept what the Germans were willing to pay, and it was not much. Producers feared that the huge quant.i.ties of champagne Klaebisch was demanding would soon deplete their stocks, leaving them stuck in the same economic mora.s.s they had been in during the 1930s.

Those years, more than anything, defined the almost militant mood that still prevailed in Champagne when Klaebisch arrived. In 1932, champagne houses had managed to sell only four and a half million bottles of the 150 million that were in their cellars. The mood among growers who sold their grapes to the houses was sour too. In 1933 and 1934, they were paid no more than one franc a kilo for their grapes. In 1931, they had been paid eleven francs, a loss of income that severely jeopardized their businesses. The picture improved in 1937 and 1938, but quickly turned bleak again when war was declared in 1939. In desperation, producers began walling up their champagne and s.h.i.+pping other stocks to the United States and Great Britain for safekeeping.

Now they faced ma.s.sive requisitioning. Pol Roger, the house that made Prime Minister Winston Churchill's favorite champagne, was ordered to send huge quant.i.ties of its 1928 vintage to Berlin each month. "It was such a great vintage," said Christian de Billy, president of Pol Roger, who was born in that year. "We never had a lot and tried to hide what we could, but it was so wonderful and so well known that it was impossible to keep it out of German hands. Klaebisch knew it was there."

As German demands for champagne escalated-at times Klaebisch was demanding half a million bottles a week-de Voge feared, more than ever, that houses like Pol Roger would not survive. On April 13, 1941, he called together producers and growers to set up an organization that would represent the interests of everyone in the champagne industry. "We are all in this together," de Voge told them. "We will either suffer or survive but we will do so equally."

The organization they created was called the Comite Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne, or CIVC, which still represents the champagne industry today. At the time, the goal of the CIVC was to enable producers to present a united front and speak with a single voice. De Voge, it was decided, would be the point man. "He had the courage and enough audacity to represent the interests of Champagne and to be the one and only delegate to the Germans," said Claude Fourmon, who was de Voge's a.s.sistant. "He never doubted the Allies would win the war, so his goal was to keep everything at an acceptable level. He wanted to make sure that everyone had something to start over with when the war ended."

Klaebisch was unhappy about the CIVC and did not want to deal with it; he preferred to stick with his prewar contacts. He knew that was how Bmers operated and he wanted to emulate the Bordeaux weinfhrer by taking complete control of the champagne business. Klaebisch summoned de Voge to his office in Reims.

There, he got right to the point. "Here are the ground rules. You can sell to the Third Reich and its military, and also to German-controlled restaurants, hotels and nightclubs, and a few of our friends like the Italian amba.s.sador to France and Marshal Petain at Vichy. The Marshal, by the way, likes to have a good quant.i.ty for his own personal use."

De Voge listened without interrupting as the weinfhrer outlined the conditions. "n.o.body gets any free samples, there are no discounts no matter how large the order, and no full bottles of champagne may be sold unless empty bottles are first turned in." Then Klaebisch told de Voge how much champagne he wanted each month and what he was willing to pay for it. "You can spread the order out any way you wish among the major champagne houses just as long as I get my champagne," he said.

De Voge was taken aback. "There is no way we can meet those demands," he said. "Two million bottles a month? How do you expect us to do it?"

"Work Sundays!" Klaebisch shot back.

De Voge refused. To their credit, each man seemed to have an innate sense of how far they could push the other. After more heated exchanges, de Voge said champagne producers would work longer days to meet their quotas but only if the weinfhrer extended the number of hours they could have electricity. Klaebisch agreed.

De Voge, however, was not the only thorn in Klaebisch's side. In Berlin, Field Marshal Gring was demanding ever greater amounts of champagne for his Luftwaffe. The navy was also making huge demands. Buffeted from all sides, the weinfhrer went back to de Voge. This time, he was more conciliatory. "We've had our disagreements," he said, "but I've got a problem with Berlin and I hope you will see fit to help me." Klaebisch described how Gring was pressuring him to supply more champagne. He then proposed that if the CIVC would keep the champagne coming, he would make sure producers had all the supplies they needed such as sugar for their dosages, fertilizer for their vineyards, even hay for their horses.

De Voge said it was a deal.

It was an especially good deal for Pol Roger. Not long afterward, a spokesman from Pol Roger contacted the weinfhrer's office to say they were doing some repair work in their cellars and needed cement. Klaebisch arranged for its immediate delivery. Pol Roger used the cement to wall up and hide some of its best champagne from the Germans.

"The champagne houses did their best to perform a little sleight of hand," admitted Claude Taittinger, head of Taittinger Champagne. "Most tried to preserve their best wines and palm off the inferior blends on the enemy." They knew, for instance, that bottles whose labels were stamped "Reserved for the Wehrmacht" and often had a red bar running across it were unlikely to fall into hands of their regular customers. As a result, most of the houses did not hesitate to use them for their worst cuvees. "What they forgot," said Taittinger, "was that Klaebisch was a connoisseur and capable of cracking the whip now and then to show he was not always fooled by our tricks."

One day at lunchtime, Klaebisch called up Roger Hodez, secretary of the Syndicat des Grandes Marques de Champagne, an a.s.sociation representing the major champagne houses, and invited him for an aperitif. "We've never had a drink together," the weinfhrer said. "Why don't you drop by my office and we'll have one." Hodez felt he could not refuse.

When he arrived, Klaebisch invited him to sit down and poured him a gla.s.s of champagne. Then he poured one for himself. The weinfhrer seemed to be in a good mood and Hodez began to relax. Then, suddenly, Hodez's nose wrinkled as a ghastly odor rose from his gla.s.s. Bravely, he took a sip. The taste was only slightly better than the smell. There was no sign Klaebisch had noticed Hodez's discomfort. "What do you think?" he asked affably. Before Hodez could reply, the weinfhrer suddenly leaned across his desk and put his face inches away from Hodez's. "Let me tell you what I think," he snarled, his voice rising in crescendo. "It smells like s.h.i.+t! And this is what you want me to give the Wehrmacht to drink? I want the house that made this c.r.a.p struck from the list of firms supplying champagne to Germany. I wouldn't dare send their stuff to Berlin!"

Hodez shrank back in his chair, fumbling for words as he tried to pacify Klaebisch. "I'm sure it was only an accident," he stammered, "a case of dirty bottles perhaps, or maybe . . ." Before Hodez could say anything else, however, he was ordered out of Klaebisch's office.

The shaken trade representative went straight to de Voge and told him what happened. De Voge immediately contacted the champagne house and warned officials of what Klaebisch had said. The head of the firm shrugged, saying he did not care. "We're not making much money from the Germans anyway. We'll be better off selling a little of our champagne on the black market and holding the rest until after the war."

De Voge shook his head. "That's not the point," he said. "We're all in this together and you have to provide your fair share." He instructed the firm to send its portion of champagne to several other houses, which agreed to bottle it under their own labels.

Klaebisch, however, was more suspicious than ever that champagne producers were trying to trick him. He began conducting spot checks of champagne bound for Germany, pulling out bottles, popping their corks, sniffing their contents and then tasting them. That is how Franois Taittinger ended up in jail.

Franois was twenty years old when he was brought in to help run the family firm after his uncle had become totally deaf. Like others, he underestimated Klaebisch's knowledge of champagne and thought he could outfox the weinfhrer by sending him champagne that was distinctly inferior in quality. When Klaebisch discovered it, he ordered Franois to his office.

"How dare you send us fizzy ditch water!" he yelled.

Franois, known for his quick temper, shot back, "Who cares? It's not as if it's going to be drunk by people who know anything about champagne!"

Klaebisch threw Franois into jail. In the same cell were a number of other champagne producers who had also tried to pa.s.s off bad wine.

A few days later, the eldest of the Taittinger brothers went to Klaebisch's office to plead Franois's case. Guy Taittinger was a former cavalry officer and a born diplomat. He regaled the weinfhrer with stories about his days in the French army. He described how he once had to "drink a bottle of champagne that had been decapitated with a saber and poured into a backplate of armor." Klaebisch was amused, so much so that finally he shook his head, put up his hand and said, "Okay, you win. Your brother can go."

Most people in Champagne saw Klaebisch not as a n.a.z.i diehard but more as an arbitrator between the French wine community and Berlin. Never was that more evident than when Vichy launched a forced labor program, Service du Travail Obligatoire, or STO, to supply Germany with workers for its factories and industries. In one week alone, Pol Roger had ten of its workers hauled off to Germany; the next week, seventeen more.

"There's no way we can continue like this," de Voge warned Klaebisch. "We don't have enough people for our regular work, let alone for the harvest. If you do not get some of our workers back, you will have no champagne next year." The CIVC itself tried to keep the houses functioning by rotating experienced workers from one champagne maker to another. Still, the companies were falling far short of their imposed quotas.

The weinfhrer, who prided himself on his efficiency, quickly contacted authorities in Berlin. Faced with a choice between less champagne or less labor in their factories, the Germans chose the latter and allowed some of the more experienced and older workers to return to their cellars.

Each concession from Klaebisch, however, seemed to generate another edict. From now on, he said, a German officer must accompany every worker going into the caves. Producers thought it was ridiculous and completely impractical. When the weinfhrer backed off, there was a huge sigh of relief, for the chalk cellars, the crayeres of Champagne, were being used by the Resistance, both as a place of refuge and as a place to stockpile arms and supplies.

In fact, the Resistance was doing a great deal more. It had picked up on the fact that champagne s.h.i.+pments were providing significant military intelligence. Through them, they could tell where the Germans were preparing a major military offensive. They first became aware of this when the Germans, in 1940, ordered tens of thousands of bottles to be sent to Romania, where, officially, there was only a small German mission. Within a few days, Romania was invaded by the German army. Afterward, bottles of bubbly were distributed to all the troops, a way of saying to the soldiers that "the Fhrer thinks of his men first."

From that time on, the Resistance, with help from the major champagne houses, kept meticulous track of where large s.h.i.+pments of champagne were going. Alarm bells went off toward the end of 1941 when the Germans placed a huge order and asked that the bottles be specially corked and packed so that they could be sent to "a very hot country." That country turned out to be Egypt, where Rommel was about to begin his North African campaign. The information was relayed to British intelligence in London.

As the war continued, relations between Klaebisch and de Voge deteriorated. Klaebisch felt more and more as though he were being taken advantage of and being "sandbagged" by de Voge. He was annoyed that de Voge always referred to him as Klaebisch, never Herr Klaebisch or Monsieur Klaebisch or even Captain Klaebisch, just Klaebisch.

But that was a mere irritation. Far more serious was that Klaebisch and other German authorities were becoming more and more convinced that de Voge and his colleagues at Mot & Chandon were actively helping the Resistance. Their suspicions were correct.

In the early days of the occupation, Mot & Chandon had been pillaged more than any other champagne house. The Chandon chteau on the grounds of Dom Perignon's abbey had been burned down and many other buildings belonging to Mot were taken over to house German troops. To add insult to injury, the company had also been ordered to supply the Third Reich with 50,000 bottles of champagne a week, or about one-tenth of all the champagne the Germans were requisitioning.